The beginning, as every story has one

I have to start from the beginning, but I think if you really were to examine it, many of these stories start back in our own conceptions, and the genetics that are passed on at that moment of quickening. I have two Italian parents, and my aunts, cousins,... even my mother had fibroids. Breast and uterus. You'd think that would've meant that I had all the information I could possibly need, that the minute this happened all was revealed and I could walk comfortably in the direction fate seemed to be taking me. But that was hardly the case. Generations before mine seemed to have been lead directly to the operating room, with little understanding that it was the inevitable end to the issue of having an uninvited, albeit graciously benign mass living where a baby should be. And it must have been hard for them in a family like mine -- large Italian families. My godmother, who's oldest daughter was born the same year I was, conceived my youngest cousin in my virginal bed while I was away at college. It ain't over til it's over. My mother's first fibroid was found when she was pregnant with me -- I apparently just beat it in to submission, in utero. I am afraid for all the relief that knowing I didn't have cancer brought, perhaps because of my own pre-cognitive embyronic victory over my own uterus-mate, I was radically opposed to remove an entire organ from my body without that dreaded diagnosis. Frankly, my body had been through enough, tough little cookie that it is, and it deserved better. And so did I. I was too young to never be able to have another baby. My creative power meant more to me than the perceived peace of mind the doctor who diagnosed me thought getting rid of it would bring.

It had been an obnoxiously stressful time. I had my first child. He was glorious the moment of arrival. I had been fluctuating around 105lbs when I conceived him (with of course a little help) and he was born just under 10lbs. Ouch. But worth it of course. He outnumbered me on sight and sound. I turned, looked up at him, screaming and alive and HUGE, and I said to my doctor "just give him the keys to the car and tell him I'll meet him at home". The vaginal delivery had been, well, a little rough. We had no idea how large he was going to be until my water broke. The nurse just said "WOW". But he was healthy, and aside from a 3rd degree episiotomy with some tearing, I had managed to survive as well. Less than a week later I was back on the table with a post-partum infection that weakened me, and turned his baby eyes yellow with the antibiotics given to me that he ingested, however safe for newborns, in my breast milk. Nothing had been left behind, the episiotomy was clean, and the infection, it was speculated, was due to injury in delivery, perhaps even from in-utero kicking. To this day I occassionally mention it, when he gets into those moods when he acts like a rock star...

He nursed into his second year, but when he was ready to move on my supply was still so strong, a Med student from Duke came by to pick up frozen breast milk by the case for the AIDS and drug-addicted babies in the NICU who couldn't drink formula or their own mother's milk. It all sounds very altruisic I suppose but truth is I had gotten use to my full C cup and the body I had so strived for as an aspiring dancer suddenly seemed boyish and inadequate after experiencing its awesome creative power first hand.

Baby two was conceived while I was still lactating. She tried to kill me in-utero, but was viamently prayed for, and though I threw up into my 6th month, suffered a long string of illnesses, from a pre-delivery mastitis infection, to bronchititis, to pnuemonia, and back again, she was born, induced a 8.5lbs, effortlessly. She was like butter and remains sweet and comforting and delicious to this day -- if such a thing can be said of a child.

She nursed for three years, When she began to whine "Mommen, I want booben juice" it seemed obvious to me that any kid who could say it, was ready to be past it. I was her night time pacifer and my body was replaced by cuddling and THE LITTLE PRINCE, THE COOKIE TREE, and THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.

SO I got my body back. With the "baby girl" in preschool I was in kick-boxing or pilates and working out 5 mornings a week. I settled into the "ZONE" diet and my energy level soared. I "was back". The kids would catch me in the living room working out and I would chase them back to "The Magic School Bus". I started back to my performance work and was carving out space for my own aspirations.

And then grandmother's began to get sick and aged and needed me. My son, who was found to be hearing impaired at 9 months, fought his battles to learn, and we spent long hours at speech therapy, long drives to a Montessori program 45 minutes away from where we lived, and got the procedures he needed to become the marvel he is today. Siblings had crises. And there was a move. Towers fell in NY and we were at war. Servicemen packed up and left the country they served.

And amidst the rubble of 9/11, something inside me needed to grow. I understand now that, if your don't keep growing and creating, your body will find a way to grow and create on its own. The manifestation of that is not always healthy. A woman's body is a force of nature -- nurturing, miraculous, and occassionally, chaotic.